Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread to US college campuses like the University of California at Davis, of which the above YouTubeVideo caption says, "Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis." The students pepper sprayed were peacefully sitting down. There are seventeen thousand comments on this video at YouTube, with over 900,000 views after two days posted, Saturday, November 19, 2011 and Sunday, 20th.

Looks like America's college campus may just explode after what happened at a non-violent protest at UC Davis. . . . This reminds me of the violent action of police against civil rights marchers back in the early 60's.

The Washington Post says:

The video, which shows the officer using the spray against Occupy protesters Friday, went viral over the weekend. On Sunday, the university placed two police officers on administrative leave while a task force investigates. The clip probably will be the defining imagery of the Occupy movement, rivaling in symbolic power, if not in actual violence, images from the Kent State shootings more than 40 years ago.

Putting this growing protest in context, college students have a lot to protest about:

Students are unable to find internships to offset the cost of their college expenses, and jobs after college are scare with 15-20% unemployment in that age-group. MSNBC says,

They will enter an economy where roughly 17% of people aged 20 through 24 do not have a job, and where two million college graduates are unemployed. They will enter a world where they will compete tooth and nail for jobs as waitresses, pizza delivery men, file clerks, bouncers, trainee busboys, assistant baristas, interns at bodegas.

Students' expected post-college income in decreasing, if they expect to have income at all;

Parents are less able to help students financially because their greatest asset -- the value of their houses -- has tanked. Second mortgages have become impossible with homes "underwater" and some parents' investments have become equally worthless.

Parents are taking additional jobs to pay basic household bills, and some parents are becoming unemployed, and even losing their homes;

Students are racking student debt at unprecedented levels. With no way to discharge this debt in bankruptcy, their only hope for relief, other than paying in perpetual debt servitude, may be to become "permanently and totally disabled" and "discharge" the debt with the US Department of Education. This might be an option for students whose debt drives them completely insane or who become permanently crippled in suicide attempts.

In this context of student fright about what has happened to their present and their future, students have every reason to join Occupy Wall Street protesters and begin to occupy US college campuses.

Angering the students even more against the Republican Party in particular, Republican presidential nomination candidate Newt Gingrich said yesterday, with respect to Occupy protesters,

"Now, that is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country and why you need to reassert something as simple as saying to them, ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath.’”

The Republican debate audience responded to that comment by filling the Christian church with some of the loudest applause of the evening.

President Obama can't fire up student support for his re-election, but Republican presidential nomination candidate Newt Gingrich can rally students and many sympathetic Americans for the Democrats with comments like this one.

Add your voice. The following contact information for campus police and school officials was provided with the above video:

Title says all. During peacefully Occupy Movement, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprays the students to open a path for the rest of the officers.

*UPDATE*The officer who sprayed the students was UC Davis Police Lt. John PikeLieutenant John Pike - (530) 752-3989-Police Station #Email: japikeiii@ucdavis.edu

Monday, October 3, 2011

Offering a reason for some police behavior without making an excuse, a case from Florida shows that some police officers are mentally ill, even if they are able to understand the wrongfulness of their actions.

A female Florida sheriff's deputy handcuffed naked girls to a desk, spanked them with a leather paddle and sent the seamy homemade videos to a boyfriend she met on a fetish web site, authorities said.

Robin Leigh Pagoria, 45, subjected her two victims - described as girls between the ages of 10 and 18 - to multiple torture sessions, authorities said.

So, where are the local police union and chief elected officials who would normally insist that barbaric behavior is justified by the circumstances and the police officers' fear that not spanking these children would have led to even greater harms? Does either of the girls have a court history that would explain the officer's need to engage in video-taped beatings of naked girls and them put them on the Internet? Apparently, there is at least some police atrocity that even police officers and their supervisors cannot defend.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

A dedicated reader of this blog just informed me, in the Deryl Dedmond, 'Let's go get an "N-word"' case, in which a middle-aged Black man, named James Craig Andersonwas run over by a color-aroused white youth with a pickup truck, now the Black victim's family has asked that the death penalty not be sought against any of the culprits.

Deryl Dedmon, 19, was arrested on a charge of capital murder, which is punishable by death or life without parole. He has not been indicted and it will be up to a grand jury to decide on the formal charges. Capital murder in Mississippi is defined as a murder that happens during the commission of another felony. The underlying offense in this case is the alleged robbery of Anderson.

Police say that Dedmon and a group of teens had been partying late that night in suburban Rankin Countywhen he asked a group of them to go out looking for a black man to "mess with." Seven people allegedly loaded up in two cars and headed to Jackson.

Those responsible for James' death not only ended the life of a talented and wonderful man. They also have caused our family unspeakable pain and grief. But our loss will not be lessened by the state taking the life of another.

( . . . )

"We also oppose the death penalty because it historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites. Executing James' killers will not help balance the scales. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment."

Most of the time, the facts of case of police brutality and atrocity speak for themselves, but I have strong feelings and opinions about this case.

Francis L. Holland says:

I wish the family had waited until the penalty phase of the trial to come out with this ameliorating statement. The white boy with blue eyes will probably now get a life sentence with eligibility for parole in ten or fifteen years. The victim's family short-circuited the color-aroused criminal justice system by asking that the boy not receive the harshest penalty for the harshest crime. Now, the trial and subsequent injustice will get far less attention than it deserves nationally and internationally.

Certainly, the death penalty was taken off of table in the O.O. Simpson case, but that case lacked video evidence of the accused beating and then running over his victim with a pick-up truck.

As a matter of reality, there was no way this kid was going to get the death penalty and have it sustained on appeal in Mississippi. There are all sorts of ways they could and would have avoided inflicting the death penalty, such as changing the venue of the trial to an all-white town, doggedly keeping Blacks off of the jury, etc.

The injustice system should have been allowed to embarrass itself and show its skin-color-based decision processes through every phase of the case, as it does in cases in which Blacks are the victims.

I strongly disagree that the victim's family has created a teachable moment this way. Whites think they have a right to kill Black people, so they will think that the Black family's act of generosity and selflessness it is not magnanimous but just another example of Blacks knowing they should step off of the sidewalk when whites go by.

Martin Luther King, Jr. would have approved of this action by the family, where the family tries to teach white people how vengeful they are as a color-group, compared to sane people, in the hopes that embarrassment and the high road will reach their hearts.

I have a color-aroused suspicion that, when this trial is over and the Dedmond, kid will soon be out on probation, doing three months of community service at his local chapter of the Klu Klux Klan chapter.

In expressing that opinion, I have to admit my own experience. When I was seven years old, my sister was shot in the chest by white men who confessed to the act, but served no prison or jail time. Not even for disturbing the peace.

Perhaps the family is wise to argue against the death penalty, since Dedmond wouldn't have gotten the death penalty in any case.

We have realized that "the system," from 911 calls to the gallows, is stacked against Blacks, and so we have fought back with electronic weapons of communication and organization that were never before available to us on this scale.

Today, Field Negro brings our attention to a case that we have fought longand hard. We have won over and over again, by postponing the execution, and seeking new consideration for a probably-not guilty man, but we are down to the wire again. We have to reach out to the Black and progressive public, in the state of Georgia, through mainstream and targeted media, to delay the work of the guillotine, save the life and postpone the death of Troy Davis.

The day we’ve dreaded is finally here:a Georgia judge issued a death warrant for Troy Davis. It shocks the conscience, but despite all the doubt hanging over the case – all the evidence that Troy is likely innocent – Troy is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection as soon as September 21.

Not good enough to put reasonable doubt in your mind? How about the following?

"...upon reviewing his case a federal court held in 2010 that he hadn't proven his "actual innocence" because his post-conviction body of evidence was either "not credible and would be disregarded by a reasonable juror," too general, or both. The presiding judge didn't allow Davis's lawyers to call any of the recanting witnesses—who pinned the murder on a different man at the scene named Sylvester "Redd" Coles— because they hadn't subpoenaed Coles to testify. However, the judge asserted that, even if the lawyers had called Coles to the stand, he might have confessed to the crime just to enhance "his reputation as a dangerous individual." Based on this logic, we should now assume that everyone who's ever confessed to murder probably did so only to enhance their badass reputations and therefore should be released from prison, because they're innocent.

In March the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to give Davis more time to prove his innocence. Despite all the evidentiary issues, Georgia's superior court has scheduled his execution for September 21. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has scheduled a hearing two days before Davis's government-issued death; Davis' lawyers will call some of the recanting witnesses, and maybe the board will be influenced by what they hear. If not, then Davis will be executed.." [Source]

Congrats Governor Deal, if you put Troy Davis down, you too can run for president and get all the adoration and applause from your party loyalist.

We are one day away from September 11th. And the psychos who flew the planes into those buildings were inhumane and had no empathy for their fellow human beings. They represented the worst of what humanity has to offer.

Many readers have already signed the petition with their name. Now, we need to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$sign the petition with our money, to support Color of Change's strategy of pressuring the Georgia Parole Board through paid media buys. This is the only known change that Troy Davis might have left.

why is there so much violence in the black community? The article will include: statistics on crime in impoverished neighborhoods, explain why violence is more prevalent, and explain how Its not just because one race is more violent than another but because the way people are oppressed and through oppression comes coping mechanisms to get through life.

This Journal's response is as follows (but is subject to public comment from all quarters):

Allison:

I believe that one of the reasons there is so much crime in some Black communities is that some whites (and even some Blacks) hate, despise, subjugate and marginalize Blacks, and Blacks have turned that anger inward. Take, for example, your use of the word "race." What do you mean when you use the word "race"? Are you suggesting that people with white skin and people with brown skin are from different species? If you are, then I think that insults Blacks more than the "N" word does.

Whether it comes from Black or white people, I believe the assertion that "race" exists at all is a profound insult to Blacks that can only be based in malice or ignorance. I, quite frankly, am sick and tired of the "R" word. It is, in my opinion, anachronistic and anti-science.

If you would like to write an article explaining why you still use the "R" word, even though the US Government's Human Genome Project has declared conclusively that "race" simply does not exist, then I would be very interested in reading and publishing your article on that topic. I think we all will learn something, no matter what you say about what you mean when you use the "R" word.

Having said that, if you want to write about Black people and crime, and you demonstrate that you have something new and original to bring to the topic, then I'll gladly publish what you write. I would just request that you either define "race" as a factor in your research or find a way to describe what you mean to say without using the "R" word and without asserting that I and other people with brown skin belong to a species that is separate and distinct from that comprising the white-skin-color-group.

If you insist that you cannot discuss this topic without using the word and the concept of "race," then I insist that you explain and support your definition of the "R" word in light of the findings of the US Government's Human Genome Project and the following articles that the Nature.Com website offers as suggested further reading on the topic, based on scientific genomic research completed within the last decade:

What we do and don't know about 'race', 'ethnicity', genetics and health at the dawn of the genome erappS13 - S15Francis S CollinsPublished online: 26 October 2004|doi:10.1038/ng1436Abstract|Full text|PDF (330K)

Last week, we delivered the petition signatures at Alvarez's office in downtown Chicago. But Alvarez so far remains silent. We need to step up the pressure.

Can you make a quick call to Alvarez's office (312 325-9200) and demand that she vacate the convictions of these innocent men? If enough of us call, it will let her know we're not going away and increase the pressure on her to act. Just click the link to make your call — we'll give you the number and a short script you can use:

Attorney Alvarez needs to know that we will hold her accountable for blocking justice and supporting law enforcement practices that compromise all of our safety. Please take a moment now to call Alvarez and ask her to immediately correct these outrageous wrongs.

-- Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
September 9th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU--your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

Friday, September 9, 2011

I read an e-mail recently that pointed out with great specificity the problems that Blacks are having with police and the criminal justice system in one geographical area, but that then proposed the following as causes leading to potential solutions:

I wrote back with the following opinion, which I've embellished with citations and statistics below:

I believe the police are doing exactly what they are trained to do, which is to occupy the Black community and keep it under a state of siege. When police learn to profile based on skin color during their training courses, they are receiving "training" to suspect, beat, arrest and imprison Black people disproportionately. If this is what you mean when you say "poor training" then I agree with you.

Supervisors in police departments almost always support police officers who have committed even the most savage and unconscionable acts under color of law. If by "poor supervision" you mean that supervisors encourage officers to target Blacks, then I agree with you that "poor supervision" is a problem.

When police departments recruit police officers, they recruit people whom they believe will behave consistent with the above policies of color-aroused injustice. Police know what their job is in the Black community and with respects to Blacks who are in a white community or institution: arrest and convict enough Black people to maintain one million Blacks in jail and prison, which has the highest imprisonment rates of any country on Earth, by far.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China's extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.)

( . . . )

The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)

US rates are in large part driven by disproportionate minority incarceration.

In the US, African Americans are over six times as likely to be incarcerated as whites; Latinos over twice as likely. If the US enacted the reforms necessary to reduce its disproportionate minority confinement by just 50%, the incarceration rate would drop to approximately 491 and put the US fifth in the world instead of first (see Harrison & Beck, 2006 and US Census Bureau, 2006a).

§ 20% of the general population;§ 42% of those arrested for criminal offenses;§ 64% of the prison population; and§ 86.8% of those incarcerated for drug offenses.

This is not, as many assume, attributable to a higher incidence of criminal behavior amongBlacks. The national data shows that Non-whites are statistically more likely to be imprisoned because they are more likely to be arrested than Whites. Much of this appears tobe attributable to the “war on drugs.” Studies have consistently shown that Whites use drugs at rates comparable to Blacks, which makes them the vast majority of illicit drug users.

The racial disparity in the justice system originates predominantly at the point of first contact with law enforcement. Depending on the level and type of crime, the disparity may increase, remain roughly the same, or in some cases decrease as the case moves through the justice system; however, this change is typically not significant when compared to the disparity that occurs at arrest.

This point of first contact can occur through police response to 911 calls or through more discretionary activities such as traffic stops, police contact in the community (e.g. for loitering, lurking), or in the case of juveniles, through interactions with school administration (e.g. for disorderly conduct). Studies from across the country have shown that a disproportionate number of African Americans are routinely stopped and searched while driving4. This finding holds true in Minnesota.

Here, law enforcement officers stop Black, Latino, and American Indian drivers all at a greater rate than White drivers; search Blacks, Latinos and American Indians all at a greater rate than White drivers; and find contraband as a result of searches of Blacks, Latinos, and American Indians all at a rate lower than in searches of White drivers. African Americans drivers, for example, are stopped at a rate 3.5 times higher than Whites; searched at a rate 3.4 times higher, yet have contraband found on their person or in their car only half as often as Whites (Council: Racial Profiling, 2003).

The racial disparity at point of first contact carries over into arrests. A Council study found that for every 100,000 people in each racial group, the arrest rate was 4,138 for African Americans, 1,277 for American Indians, 188 for Asians, and 404 for Whites. The racial disparity (i.e. the ratio of arrest rates) for African American to White was 10:1; for Latinos to White 4:1; and

Nationally, the disparity for African Americans and Whites was 4: 1; which
means that the arrest rate disparity in Minnesota is more than twice the national average. The racial disparity is larger for low level offenses where police officer discretion is the greatest. In 2001, the equivalent of one out of four Black residents of Minneapolis were either arrested or cited for such low-level offenses as disorderly conduct, loitering or lurking. For Whites, the number was one in sixty, yielding a disparity of fifteen to one (Council: Low Level Offense, 2004).

The racial disparity in low level offense arrests is also true for juveniles. In Minneapolis, African American juveniles are at least four times more likely to be cited or booked for loitering than White juveniles. In Brooklyn Center, African American juveniles represent 20 percent of the population, yet are 65 percent of those who are either cited or arrested (Council: Disproportionate Minority Contact II, 2006).

The above is not evidence of lack of "poor training" or "poor supervision." It is evidence of systematic and blatantly obvious color-aroused policing patterns that are apparent to anyone who visits a jail in a majority white state (all states).

Overall, this problem is not one of negligence, but rather one of a white nation intentionally focusing on Black communities for more violent, more stringent and more punitive treatment. When we complain, police departments and politicians assure us that better training, supervision and recruitment could reverse these realities. We buy into this story that says that police abuses are not intentional but are negligent results of lapses. The truth is that police abuse of Blacks is no more negligent (accidental and unintended) than Klu Klux Klan rallies and lynchings. What they do is intentional and based on a clear understanding of the injustice rather than an ignorance of it.

The police represent American society's worst attitudes about Blacks. Training police not to abuse Blacks is like training tigers not to attack rabbits and to be vegetarians instead. Good luck! What we need is political change with respect to the fact and results of color-arousal in the United States and elsewhere.

I believe this is why the Black Panther Party focused on "revolution" as the solution, even though it was hard to imagine how a small Black minority of the American population could take control of the Government and change its policing and incarceration behavior. It was clear to the Black Panthers that minor retouches to a fundamentally color-aroused (in)justice system, in a profoundly color-aroused incarceration society, would be insufficient and mostly meaningless in terms of addressing and redressing the blatant and rampant discrimination against, subjugation and imprisonment of Blacks by "the system."

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Even after afrosphere blogger Francis L. Holland, Esq. refused to publicize the Political Justice Degrees website in exchange for their linking to this blog, they have nonetheless selected this Police Brutality (and Atrocity) Blog as number eight among 100 "Police and Detective Blogs". This is particularly significant in light of the their criteria for selecting blogs for this list.

Criminal justice is perhaps one of the the most broad reaching fields of study in education today. It incorporates not only the topics that immediately come to mind such as law enforcement, corrections and the courts, but also political history, social issues, psychology and civil liberties among many others. This diversity of issues makes criminal justice dynamic but it also makes it dizzyingly complex for someone trying to educate themselves in justice issues. Consequently, we have compiled this list to help anyone involved in the criminal justice field — including academics, practitioners and students — find information and resources about their niche, as well as any other aspect of criminal justice.

Police and Detective Blogs

Get a feel for what it’s like to police the streets in some of the world’s toughest cities by checking out this list.

Our Police Brutality (and Atrocity Blog) is number eight among the list of 100 blogs.

When I started the Police Brutality Blog, it was with the goal of doing what the Black Panther Paper did four decades ago: it made local examples of color-aroused injustice into national outrages that stiffened all of our resolve to dismantle what was once called "racism" and is now called "color-aroused injustice." If the Black Panthers had had the electronic resources that we do now, they would have had two million followers on Facebook, including the FBI and the local and state police departments as avid readers.

Ironically, the Police Brutality Blog has become a place where both police and their brutality victims, as well as students of the police/public interface, can encounter opposing views about cases without this resulting in violence and arrests. But, I admit that I feel safer writing this blog about American injustice from Brazil than from Boston or Newark. I would hate to be stopped driving while Black, for the officer to then realize I was the man helping to turn obscure local police brutality into nationally and internationally repulsive police injustice cases.

Perhaps the most important thing do is to support local Black Accused Support Groups (BASG's), as well as national Black accused support groups like Color of Change, and highlighted individuals like Kelly Williams-Bolar:

Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Ohio mother who was convicted of a felony after allegedly misleading authorities and sending her children to a school outside her district. We just learned that Ohio Governor John Kasich granted Williams-Bolar executive clemency, reducing her convictions from felonies to misdemeanors. Gov. Kasich took this action despite the fact that Friday, the Ohio parole board made a unanimous recommendation against any form of clemency.

By bringing local cases to national attention, we bring a new level of scrutiny, embarrassment and public responsibility to local police officers and police forces, who realize that there might well be a digital camera capturing their behavior and spreading it worldwide. More than ever before we who fight color-aroused injustice can say to local police forces that, "The whole world is watching."

The following comes from Color of Change regarding a great victory in a criminal court case in which Color of Change and US and international afrosphere and other bloggers publicly intervened:

Dear Atty,

There's great news today in the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Ohio mother who was convicted of a felony after allegedly misleading authorities and sending her children to a school outside her district. We just learned that Ohio Governor John Kasich granted Williams-Bolar executive clemency, reducing her convictions from felonies to misdemeanors. Gov. Kasich took this action despite the fact that Friday, the Ohio parole board made a unanimous recommendation against any form of clemency.

This is a huge victory, and it wouldn't have happened without the activism of ColorOfChange members, and our friends at Change.org and MomsRising.org:

When we first learned of the case in February, more than 67,000 ColorOfChange members called on Gov. Kasich to take a public stand and commit to pardoning Williams-Bolar.

We delivered your signatures to Gov. Kasich's office, along with thousands more from Change.org and MomsRising.org — more than 165,000 signatures in all. The next day, Gov. Kasich responded to the public pressure by asking the state's parole board to review Williams-Bolar's case.

On Friday, Ohio's parole board finally came back with a recommendation for the Governor — to deny Williams-Bolar a pardon.

In response to the parole board's recommendation, many of you swung into action this week, calling Gov. Kasich's office and urging him to issue Williams-Bolar a pardon anyway. Today, Gov. Kasich announced that he would reduce Williams-Bolars felony convictions to first-degree misdemeanors.

Williams-Bolar will still be on probation and will need to complete 80 hours of community service; but she won't have a felony conviction following her for the rest of her life, limiting her opportunities. Thanks for getting involved — without your voice, things could have turned out much differently for Kelley Williams-Bolar. You should be proud.

At ColorOfChange, we'll continue to fight to end inequality in education and the criminal justice system, we hope you'll continue to be there with us. Remember, our work is powered by you, our members. If you can support our work financially, in any amount, please click the link below.

-- Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
September 7th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Why are police so quick to absolve potential co-defendants of criminal responsibility?

I am not admitted to the Bar in Mississippi and I do not represent anything or anyone other than my own opinion and my opinions about general principles of criminal law, without having researched Mississippi law as it applies to this case.

However, in the Deryl Dedmon case, which I've discussed before, in terms of color-aroused violence, if a Black person or persons did what Dedmon and his friends did, then that Black person or persons would get the death penalty. There is absolutely no way that any participant present at the scene of the crime would be charged only with "assault."

However, I predict that Dedmon will not get the death penalty, much less his friends, because his skin is white and the skin of his victim is brown, and that is color-aroused injustice at work. It will depend, in large part, on the skin color of the jury, but even Black people have been taught to believe that a white life is more valuable than a Black one. Meanwhile, the Black prosecutor cannot be seen to be overly aggressive in this case, because he works in Mississippi. He might win the case in the national jury of public opinion while alienating his (all-white?) jury in Jackson, Mississippi.

I hear excuses being madeby a police detective for Dedmond's friend who traveled with him, but there is no way a police detective would offer these excuses if the killer were Black and the victim were white. I can't remember seeing a case in which a police detective in one jurisdiction made statements that tended to lessen the possible criminal consequences of a defendant in another jurisdiction. Detectives are all on the same team, unless the prosecutor is Black and the perpetrators are white.

Moreover, even if Dedmond's friend wasn't present for the run-over, he can and should be charged with conspiracy to commit murder (there was an agreement when they began their trip and murder was a foreseeable result) and attempted murder (Dedmon's friend beat the victim) as well as murder (Dedmon's friend actively engaged in a concerted effort which ended in the foreseeable death of the victim.

The friend is known to have inflicted injuries that might have killed the victim even if the victim had not been run over. That's attempted murder, and the collusion with the murderer to effectuate the beating makes it murder outright. I think we can all agree that it wasn't necessary for Dedmon to run over the victim with a pick-up truck in order for the victim to die, as the result of a beating that both Dedmon and his friend engaged in.

A conspiracy is committed at the time of the agreement to commit a crime. Since the agreement is the crime, it doesn't matter whether someone who agreed and took steps in furtherance of the conspiracy later changed his mind, e.g. because he had to go to the bathroom, and was therefore not present when the conspiracy ended in the goal that was intended. All conspirators are guilty of conspiracy, even if some of them are in Australia when the conspiratorial goal, or the likely result of the goal, is "achieved."

It was likely that two or more people young adults beating one middle-aged man, over and over again, would result in murder, and people are legally responsible for the foreseeable results of their behavior.

A lot of white people took part in the conspiracy, agreeing on the demographic group of the victim and where the victim could be found, and that the crime should be committed right away. ALL of those people are chargeable with conspiracy because the all collaborated and colluded in the agreement to do an act which none of them might have done without the encouragement of the others. The fact that the police haven't released the names of these other individuals and that their criminal responsibility has been ruled out is yet another example of color-aroused injustice.

If the victim had been white and the conspirators Black, all of them would have been charged with murder and then one of them might get life imprisonment instead of the death penalty in exchange for testimony against Dedmon and the friends who were with him.

This case helps explain why Haley Barbour decided not to run for president. He had too many skeletons already and there was always the risk that something like this would happen when he was the nominated candidate and would be besmirched nationally, even if this murder was celebrated by whites in Mississippi.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Mass Incarceration:Naïve Juveniles go into Court looking for Justice and Mercy, while Judge looks for Kickbacks for sending them to prison.
Former Luzerne County Juvenile Court Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. was sentence to 28 years in prison for his part in the “Kids For Cash” kickback scandal. A second juvenile judge, Michael Conahan, pleaded guilty last year and awaits sentencing. The two were accused of taking more than $2.8 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities' co-owner.

“The defendant argues he didn’t sell juveniles retail. We agree with that. He was selling them wholesale,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod, maintaining that the jury found Ciavarella guilty of a racketeering conspiracy for being part of a scheme to extract cash from the construction and operation of the two for-profit centers.

As a result of the corruption case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Fellow former Judges Conahan and Michael T. Toole both pleaded guilty to criminal charges last year as investigators untangled a web of corruption. A number of other public officials were caught in the probe as well, including the county's court administrator, the clerk of courts and a member of the juvenile probation services office.

Some people may see this case as an aberration and isolated, one-of-a-kind, corruption case that could only happen in Pennsylvania. What people overlook is who is the real beneficiary in the scheme, the ones receiving the bribes and kickbacks, or the one paying them?

The Prison Industrial Complex feeds on incarceration. The more prison beds occupied the more profits for the corporations that build and manage facilities.

Where paying bribes and kickbacks to juvenile justice officials may not be the normal way of doing business, they are instrumental in “get tough” policies, “zero tolerance” and longer prison sentence advocacy.

The irony in the above case is that it began with an investigation into mobster activities. There is an ominous sense of danger for those involved. Once graft is accepted from mobsters, the next bribe cannot be rejected. And so, the corrupt scheme builds upon itself, until there is a steady stream of juveniles going into prison, for little or no offense, as some investigations revealed.

Child Rights advocates cannot stop the pipeline other than warn juveniles to stay out of the juvenile justice system. Any other intervention, such as revealing the truth behind the corruption, can lead to terminal consequences.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The Great Britain website The Guardian reports that the, Mark Duggan, a "29-year-old father-of-four was shot by police during an attempted arrest in Tottenham, north London, on Thursday," but there is suspicion that the police had decided to execute Duggan before the stopped him, or made that decision at the scene. The Guardian also ran a story today whose title and subtitle say:

The IPCC was established by the Police Reform Act and became operational in April 2004. Its primary statutory purpose is to increase public confidence in the police complaints system in England and Wales.

The IPCC also investigates the most serious complaints and allegations of misconduct against the police in England and Wales, as well as handling appeals from people who are not satisfied with the way police have dealt with their complaint.

Just as some of the rioters must have believed during the riots before the IPCC report was released today, Mr. Duggan may not have been shot in the chest by police for any justifiable reason.

Speculation that Mr Duggan was "assassinated" in an execution style involving a number of shots to the head was "categorically untrue", the commission added.

Mr Duggan's brother Shaun Hall told Sky News that the family was "devastated" by his death and dismissed as "utter rubbish" claims he had shot at police.

Certainly, the suspicion that Mark Duggan was assassinated by police might be fueling riots, just as shooting such as this one triggered riots in the United States in the 1960's and early 1970's. One white female British blogger, whose blog is called "Penny Red," describes the riots that seem to have taken over Great Britain in recent days:

I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight. This is the third consecutive night of rioting in London, and the disorder has now spread to Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham. Politicians and police officers who only hours ago were making stony-faced statements about criminality are now simply begging the young people of Britain’s inner cities to go home. Britain is a tinderbox, and on Friday, somebody lit a match. How the hell did this happen? And what are we going to do now?

The Guardian provides additional details showing that the police vigilance and killing of Mark Duggan was not an ordinary traffic stop, but a well-planned confrontation:

A father of three died instantly after an apparent exchange of fire when police attempted to arrest him in north London, it emerged on Friday.

A police marksman escaped with his life when a bullet lodged in his radio during the confrontation that ended in the death of Mark Duggan, 29. The Scotland Yard firearms officer was taken to hospital and later released.

IPCC investigators believe two shots were fired by an armed officer. A spokesman for the IPCC said that at around 6.15pm on Thursday officers from Operation Trident, the Metropolitan police unit that deals with gun crime in London's black communities, with officers from the Specialist Firearms Command (CO19), stopped a minicab to carry out a pre-planned arrest. (Emphasis added.)

How did a pre-planned arrest of a man believed to be armed nonetheless result in a "shoot-out"? The perception, and the belief among rioters that police should not execute members of the public, might be the simple explanation of why Blacks and others are rioting in Great Britain. Now that an official agency reports that the victim didn't fire at police, the riots could continue and even spread.

As I write, the looting and arson attacks have spread to at least fifty different areas across the UK, including dozens in London, and communities are now turning on each other, with the Guardian reporting on rival gangs forming battle lines. It has become clear to the disenfranchised young people of Britain, who feel that they have no stake in society and nothing to lose, that they can do what they like tonight, and the police are utterly unable to stop them. That is what riots are all about.

The case of Deryl Dedmond, a white teenager who seems to have suffered from Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD) that led him to murder a Black stranger, seems to be getting massive attention in the United States, as it should. Apparently, Deryl Dedmond led a group of white teenagers to get in their cars and trucks, drive from their all-white suburb to Jackson, Misssissippi, pick a Black man at random, beat him to within an inch of his life, and then run the Black man over with a pick-up truck. "According to CNN, the teens were specifically hunting for a black victim."

Curiously, police have decided to charge only two of several white youths in this case, including murder for Dedmond and assault for his companion. Compare this to the Jena Six case, where no one was seriously hurt and yet three Black men were charged with acts including attempted murder. This case will be an object lesson about the criminal (in)justice system, regarding the way that Blacks and whites are investigated charged and sentenced in similar cases, based on their skin color.

It also seems obvious to me (see the above video) that Deryl Dedmond was led to the act he committed by a serious mental illness called "Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder" (ECAD) because:

Witnesses say that Dedmond showed aggressive and antagonistic behavior toward Blacks over a period of years.

Dedmond came to the attention of people in his community as a result of his color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior;

Witnesses believed it was only a matter of time before Dedmond committed a serious color aroused crime, which is a hallmark of Extreme Color Aroused Disorder. Anyone who will kill a stranger based on his skin color has a serious mental illness called Extreme Color Aroused Disorder. Color Aroused Disorder is "extreme" when the color arousal leads one person to murder another, because murder itself is extreme and often leads to long jail sentences that separate the mentally ill person from his family, friends and educational or professional career. An illness that seriously harms a person in that many important areas of his life is "extreme" per se.

Now that we have seen what Deryl could do based on his awareness, ideation, emotion and behavior concerning his own skin color and that of another skin-color group, let's see how the criminal justice system and the media treat this case.

Hopefully, Deryl Dedmond is already getting some psychiatric attention that might eventually lead from an extreme condition that causes him to commit murder and lessen the illness until he can at least not kill based on his ideation and emotion. He may need medication that enables him to control strong emotions more successfully and also to help him reduce his rage to the point where he can engage meaningfully in therapy that addresses is apparent Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD).

What made this youth engage in extreme color-aroused ideation, emotion, and behavior? Maybe he has Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD).

How can you tell whether an alleged act or acts reflect and are symptomatic of Extreme Color-Aroused Ideation, Emotion and Behavior Disorder (ECAD)? In criminal cases, among other evidence, people's statements (verbally expressed ideation) may reflect their hate, fear, envy, jealousy, or even curiosity, love, lust, empathy and caring, based on skin color.

When ideation and emotion are based on skin color, and skin color is the cue for a person to commit a criminal act, then you have a color-aroused behavior that, in many cases, may bring civil and criminal penalties. It is important to note that it is the illicit behavior that may bring civil and criminal punishments, while these punishments would NOT result from "mere" extreme color-aroused ideation and emotion, without the illicit behavior. The illicit behavior is a key symptom sometimes present in Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD). For example,

CNN is reporting the alleged hate crime [against] James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, who was beaten and then murdered [run over by a truck driven] by a group of white teens intent on hurting a black person. Deryl Dedmon, Jr., 18, of Brandon, Mississippi and his friends were at a party drinking when Dedmon allegedly told friends they should leave, saying "let's go fuck with some niggers," according to law enforcement officials.

Is all color-aroused violence a "hate crime"? As a legal matter it might be, but as a matter of psychology, not necessarily. If the white-skinned Dedmon killed the victim because the white anti-black antagonist was jealous of Black people and their Black President, then the crime might factually be a crime of envy, hate, jealousy and vengeance. If you if you imagine Dedmon in his first meeting with the prison psychologist, his resentments against Black people may be based on a number of emotions, since virtually no one feels only hate, consciously and unconsciously. Everybody has a panoply of feelings. A white man might hate a Black US Senate candidate because he fears the Black candidate will be elected.

I am painfully aware that a lot of Black people and white people believe that any attempt to undertand psychologically why a culprit did what he did risks that the culprit may be perceived as not as culpable for what he did, and therefore might receive a lesser sentence, if he receives a sentence at all.

In this case, where there is video cam evidence and where Dedmon admitted his crime after the fact, Dedmon could receive a strong prison sentence, unless his case is tried before an all-white jury. Perhaps the case may be tried before an all-white jury, and then Dedmon might go free, in spite of his crime that was based on anti-Black antagonistic ideation, emotion and criminal behavior.

When a person assaults and kills a stranger based on the skin color of the victim and the skin color of the accused, then that is a strong indicator that the culprit has Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder, since no one without the disorder would risk imprisonment for the purpose of targeting a stranger based on skin color. Only a person with Extreme Color Aroused Disorder would do that. Disorder is "extreme" when, among other facts:

The behavior violated laws such that it could bring or be likely to lead to criminal charges or civil liability against the assailant(s);

The assailants did not know the victim and were looking to harm someone, anyone, based on his brown skin color;

The assailant risks that the man they attack might be armed or have friends nearby, and so attacking the victim could very well lead to physical harm for the assailants;

The assailants did not stand to gain or save any money through this behavior, but could only lose money so the assailants' behavior was not self-interested but was likely to be self-destructive;

The assailants run the risk of spending time in jail or even being executed for their crime;

The assailants lose social, political and potential professional opportunities as a result of the behavior.

The above focuses on the irrational and self-destructive nature of the behavior, which is indicative of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD). Of course, behavior can be self-interested (i.e. stealing from someone based on their skin color) and still be symptomatic of Extreme Color Aroused Disorder.

When the accused Mr. Dedmon has gets to prison and speaks with the prison psychologist for the first time, Dedmon might well reveal that he was envious of Black people, many of whom have successful jobs, nice cars and a happy future ahead of them.

Is it wrong (or so hard) to acknowledge that a crime might have been motivated by color-aroused envy or color-aroused jealousy and/or color-aroused fear, as well as color-aroused hatred?

If a Black man kills a white man because he fears that the white man will take his wife, based on his knowledge that his wife has a thing for white men, then the killing of a white man by a Black man could be aroused by jealousy, envy and fear that leads to antagonistic behavior. If this seems complex, it is. Human beings are believed to have powers of feeling, thought and behavior that others in the animal kingdom do not have. If you accept that proposition, then you must also accept that human minds are copiously full of all sorts ideation and emotion that sometimes lead to behavior.

If you hear anyone trying to describe all of this with one word, e.g. "racism" or "hate," then you know that person simply has not take the time and effort to understand the mechanics of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, and they may even be aversive to complex thought about inherently complex people.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Rippa, from the AfroSpear's "Intersection of Madness and Reality blog, reports:

For the past few years I’ve watched and read with disgust as my man Villager over at Electronic Village highlights story after story of taser deaths in America. As you could imagine, these are deaths at the hands of police officers; anbd yes, oftentimes the victims are people of color – more specifically, they’re mostly Black males. But then I came across the following story, and I have to wonder: how long must legalized torture that’s not seen as deadly force continue to be sanctioned?

CINCINNATI – An autopsy is expected to be performed Monday on a teen who died after being stunned with a Taser gun at the University of Cincinnati.

Everette Howard, 18, died early Saturday morning. Friends said Howard was trying to break up a fight in front of Turner Hall when campus police responded.

Police said Howard appeared angry and didn’t follow orders. Witnesses said Howard collapsed after a UC officer stunned him with a Taser.

Read more at Rippa's blog on Everett Howard's death at the hands of a police officer with an electrocution device. The police electrocuted and executed Everett Howard, without so much as a trial. This was an extra-judicial murder. We used to call it "lynching," but the rope and the tree have since been replaced by an electronic fire arm, just like the "phasers" in the Star Trek television series. However the people with the phasers now are all too often police with suspected Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder. They view all young Black men as worthless pre-prison and/or pre-death scum, even when these young Black men have rejected prison and death, and are pursuing college degrees.

Blacks in the United States need a national anti-electrocution and execution law just as much as we needed anti-lynching laws in the days of Jim Crow.

Friday, July 22, 2011

HALLELUJAH! Praise the Lord! After 674 taser related death... a four-year campaign to raise public awareness... and 31 blog posts at my site on the subject... FINALLY, TASER International, with all its slick high-power lawyers and intimidated and bribed medical examiners and pseudo-scientific babbling experts... FINALLY, TASER International get shocked in the pocketbook... Eddie G. Griffin

CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Attorneys John Burton and Peter M. Williamson announce that at 2:30 p.m. EDT today, a federal court jury returned a verdict for wrongful death in the amount of $10,000,000.00 against TASER International Inc., for the wrongful death of 17-year-old Darryl Turner, who collapsed and died in a Charlotte, North Carolina supermarket on March 20, 2008, following shocks to the chest from a TASER Model X26 electronic control device.

After the verdict was announced, John Burton, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, explained the importance of the verdict: "TASER has been irresponsible in representing the safety of its products. Hopefully, this verdict will sound the alarm to police officers around the world that firing these weapons into the chests of people should be avoided. No other family should have to endure the tragedy that the Fontenot family has experienced." The lawsuit is Fontenot v. TASER International, Inc., United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division, Case No.